The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- When The Music’s Over-On The Anniversary Of Janis Joplin’s Death

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- When The Music’s Over-On The  Anniversary Of Janis Joplin’s Death

Classic Rock : 1968: Shakin’ All Over, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1989

Scene: Brought to mind by a the cover art on this CD of a Janis Joplin-like female performer belting out some serious blues rock in the heat of the “Generation of ‘68” night.

Josh Breslin (a. k. a. the Prince of Love, although some yellow bus wit made a joke of that moniker calling him the Prince of Lvov, some Podunk town in Poland, or some place like that) was weary, weary as hell, road- weary, drug-weary, Captain Crunch’s now Big Sur–based magical mystery tour, merry prankster, yellow brick road bus-weary, even hanging around with his “papa,” “Far-Out” Phil Larkin who had gotten him through some pretty rough spots weary. Hell, he was girl-weary too, girl weary ever since his latest girlfriend, Gypsy Lady (nee Phyllis McBride), decided that she just had to go back to her junior year of college at Berkeley in order to finish some paper on the zodiac signs and their meaning for the new age rising. Ya, okay Gypsy, do what you have to do. Moreover this summer of 1968, June to be exact, after a year bouncing between summers of love, autumns of drugs, winters of discontent, and springs of political madness what with Johnson’s resignation, Robert Kennedy’s assassination piled on to that of King’s had taken a lot out of him, including his weight, weight loss that his already slim runner’s frame could not afford.

Moreover, now the chickens were coming home to roost. Before he had joined Captain Crunch’s merry prankster crew in San Francisco, got “on the bus,” in the youth nation tribal parlance, last summer he had assumed that he would enter State U in the fall (University of Maine, for those who did not know). After a summer of love with Butterfly Swirl though (his temperature rose every time he thought about her and her cute little tricks to get him going sexually even now) and then a keen interest in a couple of other young women before Gypsy Lady landed on him, some heavy drug experiences that he was still trying to figure out, his start–up friendship with Phil, and the hard fact that he just did not want to go home now that he had found “family” he decided that he needed to “see the world” for a while instead. And he had, at least enough to weary him.

What he did not figure on, or what got blasted into the deep recesses of his brain just a couple of days ago, was a letter from his parents with a draft notice from his local board enclosed. Hell’s bells he had better get back, weary or not, and get some school stuff going real fast, right now fast. There was one thing for sure, one nineteen-year old Joshua Peter Breslin, Olde Saco, Maine High School Class of 1967, was not going with some other class of young men to ‘Nam to be shot at, or to shoot.

Funny, Josh thought, as he mentally prepared himself for the road back to Olde Saco, how the past couple of months had just kind of drifted by and that he really was ready to get serious. The only thing that had kind of perked him up lately was Ruby Red Lips (nee Sandra Kelly), who had just got “on the bus” from someplace down South like Georgia, or Alabama and who had a great collection of blues records that he was seriously getting into (as well as seriously into Ruby although she seemed slow, very slow, to get his message). Josh, throughout high school and even on the bus, was driven by rock ‘n’ roll. Period. He got surprised one day when he heard Ruby playing Shake, Rattle, and Roll. He asked, “Is that Carl Perkins?” Ruby laughed, laughed a laugh that he found appealing and said, “No silly, that's the king of be-bop blues, Big Joe Turner. Want to hear more stuff?” And that was that. Names like Skip James, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Little Walter started to fill his musical universe.

What got him really going though were the women singers, Sippie Wallace, mad Bessie Smith, a whole bunch of other barrelhouse blues-singers named Smith, Memphis Minnie and the one that really, really got to him, “Big Mama” Thornton. The latter belting out a bluesy rendition of Hound Dog that made Elvis' seem kind of punk, and best of all Piece Of My Heart.

Then one night Ruby took him to club over in Monterrey, the Blue Note, a club for young blues talent, mainly, that was a stepping-stone to getting work at the Monterrey Pop Festival each year. There he heard, heard if you can believe this, some freckled, red-headed whiskey-drinking off the hip girl, ya just a wisp of a girl, from Podunk, Texas, or maybe Oklahoma who was singing Big Mama’s Piece of My Heart. And then Ball and Chain, Little School Girl, and Little Red Rooster. Hell, she had the joint jumping until the early hours for just as long as guys kept putting drinks in front of her. What a night, what a blues singer.

Just now though Ruby Red Lips came over to him, kind of perky and kind of with that look in her that he was getting to catch on to when a girl was interested in him and said, “Hey, Janis, that singer from the Blue Note, is going to be at Monterrey Pops next month with a band to back her up, want to go? And, do you want to go to the Blue Note with me tonight?” After answering, yes, yes, to both those questions the Prince of Love (and not some dinky Lvov either) figured he could go back to old life Olde Saco by late August and still be okay but he had better grab Ruby now while he could.

Good Night, Irene Indeed-In Honor Of Folk Legend Leadbelly

Good Night, Irene Indeed-In Honor Of Folk Legend Leadbelly

No question Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter [maybe sic]) along with Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Pete Seeger and the Weavers were the talent, the folk talent, that we who passed through that now glorious folk minute of the early 1960s owed a debt to for keeping the music alive, keeping us suppled with tunes, popular tunes in their time, until those songwriters from our own time gathered voice and lyrics. So any efforts to preserve what guys like the Leadbelly put together are entirely welcome in this quarter.


Clink on the link below to hear about the latest efforts to play homage to one of the forebears of the folk revival.

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2015/02/27/lead-belly-valerie-june-folk-music-blues-smithsonian

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Woody Guthrie's "Pastures Of Plenty"

Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Woody Guthrie's "Pastures Of Plenty"

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.


PASTURES OF PLENTY
by Woody Guthrie


It's a mighty hard row that my poor hands have hoed
My poor feet have traveled a hot dusty road
Out of your Dust Bowl and Westward we rolled
And your deserts were hot and your mountains were cold

I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

California, Arizona, I harvest your crops
Well its North up to Oregon to gather your hops
Dig the beets from your ground, cut the grapes from your vine
To set on your table your light sparkling wine

Green pastures of plenty from dry desert ground
From the Grand Coulee Dam where the waters run down
Every state in the Union us migrants have been
We'll work in this fight and we'll fight till we win

It's always we rambled, that river and I
All along your green valley, I will work till I die
My land I'll defend with my life if need be
Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free

Copyright Ludlow Music, Inc.
@America @patriotic @work
recorded on Woody's Greatest Songs

The Best Laid Plans Always Go Awry- With The 1946 Film Adaptation of James M. Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” In Mind

The Best Laid Plans Always Go Awry- With The 1946 Film Adaptation of James M. Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” In Mind   

By Si Landon

[The following “confession” was found in Martha Ames’ effects at the time of her death some twenty years after the mysterious death by his own hand of Leon Ames, a District Attorney in Los Angeles County out in California. From the markings Martha had had the document for many years and had kept the whole affair quiet out of what knows what reason. Maybe sorrow, maybe anger that another woman, a tramp, had captured his imagination, maybe revenge that his “confession” would never see the light of day while she had anything to do about it and her sudden death by heart attack had cut across her purpose. The only clue to what had happened back then was a comment made to her daughter, Emily, that Leon was always a sucker for that jasmine scent, a scent she had used herself to capture his attention when they were young. Si Landon]  

*******

Now that Frank Chambers is safely out of the way, now that last night at midnight he had the life squeezed out of him, suffocated in his own gas-driven vomit courtesy of the great State of California, and me, Leon Ames, the guy who prosecuted the case of California v. Frank Chambers I can tell whoever finds this little confession now or a hundred years from now what really happened. Why Frank had to take the gas for a crime he did not commit. A crime he had sworn on seven stacked bibles that he did not commit but I was able to convince a select hand-picked jury that an accident was actually a devious murder plan. And it was except not by Frank, not by a longshot but Father Lally who administered the last rite of his church, Frank’s church, the Roman Catholic one that forgives all sinners in the end and gives then a half way decent shot at heaven told me that at the end Frank, soft-headed Frank figured he got what he deserved. What did Father Lally say he called it, oh yeah, divine retribution for his other sin. That “divine retribution” was Father Lally’s way of putting the matter to a heathen Protestant but I knew better, a lot better. It was nothing but Leon Ames retribution, or maybe covering up is a better way to put it.

They say Jim Farrell, the Postmaster General of the United States, is going to eliminate the service to save some dough and I guess wear and tear on the postman who delivers the mail by having them just deliver the mail and move on instead of ringing doorbells expecting somebody to answer and if they don’t to ring the damn bell again. This is the way we called a thing and it had nothing to do with divine retribution around my old neighborhood, around the Bunker Hill section of Los Angeles, when we were kids and we always said when something happened, usually some petty larceny, or car-jacking, it was after all a rough neighborhood I grew up in, and then got nailed for say truancy or some other crime that “the postman always rings twice.” Some guy, a crime writer named Cain, pretty good too, used that for the title of his book I remember once when I saw a copy in the library but that was long after I gave up the petty criminal life and went to college and then law school before eventually being elected a local D.A. in sprawling Los Angeles County. I had to laugh when I thought about it in the middle of the night last night when something woke me up that first Lana, then Frank, and now I had heard that damn postman ringing twice.

See I was the guy behind the whole plot, the whole scheme for me and Lana to get rid of her husband, an old geezer named Cecil Kellaway, a guy who ran the Dew Drop Inn out on the Pacific Coast Highway above Point Magoo as you start hitting the beautiful and scenic beach spots. Cecil was not a bad guy but cheap and, more importantly looked like he would live to a ripe old age. Cecil had picked up Lana, Lana Turner, as least that was the name she used when Cecil picked her up in some gin mill in Santa Monica when she was working as a B-girl and when he offered to take her away from that life she grabbed the deal with all arms. A safe port in stormy weather since she had nothing better going on, had been on her uppers too long to argue the point. That Lana Turner moniker she told me one time she had picked up from reading one of those Hollywood gossip magazines and seen a candid photograph of the actress of the same name and though she looked like that film star. Another time she told me that some guy she had picked up (and jack-rolled) had called her Lana Turner as part of his come on and she liked it enough to hold onto it for dear life. That was the name on the marriage license that Nick had framed in the living room of their house which was adjacent and connected to the diner. (It would turn out once court proceedings started that her real name was Cora Smith from Omaha, Nebraska via the school of hard knocks). That Lana Turner look-a-like was true enough. Blond as blond hair real enough with maybe a few touches as befitted a corn-fed Midwestern girl, big blue eyes that could devour you or scorn you and maybe both at the same time, a nice shape in all the right places, which showed to great effect when she wore those tight cashmere sweaters she was addicted to when she wasn’t wearing that tight waitress’ uniform when she was serving them off the arm at the Dew Drop, and nicely-turned legs and ankles. The whole package. And the morals and conscience of a sewer rat.

But I didn’t care, didn’t give a damn if she had morals or conscience or anything once I got a look at her one day when I was driving up the Pacific Coast Highway investigating a case that was coming up for trial and tired and hungry from the trip decided to stop when I saw a big Eats sign up ahead. She had that tight uniform on that day and every nerve in my body tingled as she provocatively served me my meatloaf dinner. I would not learn until later, later after that jasmine scent she wore drove me to distraction and I couldn’t think of anything but being with her that she was organically incapable of doing anything without that come hither look when a man was within fifty yards of her. It took many generations of breeding to get her to that fine-tuned sexual being that drove me, and Frank, crazy. Apparently not Cecil since he used her like a dishrag. 

That was the start of my downfall, the first time that I thought about that postman ringing twice. I would go up there several more times, telling my wife back in Ventura that I had a big case that needed my personal attention and since she was used to me going on extended trips I got away with it, still to this day she doesn’t have a clue that I was sleeping in some out of the way motel with Lana half the time I went up north. At first Lana cold-shouldered me, was pleasant but distance. Cecil on the other hand was tickled pink that a big-time Los Angeles County D.A. was frequenting his establishment, said it gave the place some class. One day when Cecil was out back in their house I flat-out asked her to go to dinner with me. Without a missed step she said yes. Asked, no told, Cecil that I had asked her to dinner like it was to some big time political event. He said sure. No problem. From that moment on pure evil, murder, murder most foul was all I could think of for one Cecil Kellaway. Done.

Done too was any pretense by Lana that she cared anything at all for Cecil, told me before I even had formulated my plan fully that she wanted to be rid of Cecil, that she wanted to run the diner on her own or maybe start a gin mill on the premises, make it a roadhouse with all the booze, gambling, whores and boys anybody wanted. I would be the cover for all the action. I told her Cecil had to go, and that I had a plan to do him in. Was she in or out? In a thousand percent was the way she put it. A few days later right in the diner I laid out the plan I had schemed up while Cecil was on the grill flipping hamburgers. We needed a third guy, some drifter, some guy who was on the bum but who still had a hard on for women (some bums, hoboes, tramps between the booze and dope and living the life don’t give a damn about women except in some drunken dream thinking of their Phoebe Snow, that’s what they called it anyway from what guys in the drunk tank told me when I first started out and the booze got to them so they saw some image of some fresh looking gal from long ago who had turned them over).

She had to persuade Cecil to hire the guy to work the gas station part of the business. I knew that would be no problem once she got her claws into him, or dangled the idea of increased profits from auto repair work in front of him. (In the end it would be the profits and not her claws that won him over). I would find the guy even if it took some time as I expected it to, the fall guy as it would turn out, whom Lana would make a play for and get him so bothered by her that he would easily come to the same conclusion that I had. Murder, murder most foul. Cecil was doomed. Lana was non-plussed by the plan, thought it over for about one minute and agreed that it had to be done. The only qualm she had was how she was going to get off a murder rap if she was part of the conspiracy to murder Cecil. I told her I had that worked out but let’s get the guy first because that would determine which way we went with it. Then coyly Lana, as if to get me all heated up, said she would probably have to sleep with the guy, have him all knotted up in her sex if he was going to fall for what he would think was her, their plan. Said just as coyly that she would be thinking of me while she was doing whatever the fall guy wanted with her. That burned me up alright but I had already assumed she would have to do whatever kinky sex things she knew, and she knew plenty, to get him to tumble but I was so far gone on her that it was a small price to pay to have her all to myself when everything was settled.

Finding a guy who fit what we needed was a lot harder than even I thought it would be. I knew a bunch of guys, Bigsy Small, the con man who I had sent up three times for various scams, Nick at Night the burglar, Tiny Tim the second story man, to name a few, all good-looking guys who would have licked their chops and done whatever Lana asked but they were too closely associated with me to do us any good. Young rummies, bums, hoboes, tramps even after the war years were hard to find and moreover as I pointed out already getting them hopped up on a dame as opposed to some H or Johnny Walker Red would be a hard sell.

Then the solution came up all by itself one day. One Francis Chambers, Frank, whom I picked up hitchhiking on the Pacific Coast Highway around Malibu and who fit the build perfectly. An ex-soldier on the bum, like a lot of guys who once they got off the regular nine to five trip they were slated for by the war, got footloose and itching to move on, move on to something. Good looking guy even if shabbily dressed just off doing bracero work bringing in the harvest in the Imperial Valley. Along the way we got talking and he told me few things, some of them I knew were lies, which for me just then was manna from heaven, and few things like he had been in a mechanized division over in Europe which had my head spinning. He was heading to Frisco via Big Sur and Carmel where he knew guys and I told him I could take him as far as Point Magoo maybe a little farther. Yeah, a little farther.

A couple of hours later we were at the diner and I had a plan ready. A plan aided by the smell of Cecil’s stew which hit Frank for a loop and I could tell that he hadn’t had a square meal in a while. I offered to buy him one but he said he had dough. While I was filling up at the gas pumps Cecil came out to greet me and that is when I sprung my “motor troubles” spiel. Frank immediately took the bait, I opened the hood, and Frank told me in front of Cecil that I needed my valves looked at, and soon. Cecil asked Frank if he was looking for a job. He said no-then. After he got into the diner and seated at the counter with the look of food hunger on his face Lana came out from the kitchen and I could hear him smack his lips. That was all it took, all it took even when I told him Lana was Cecil’s wife. He did a double-take but must have figured that like him she had some story, some tale of woe that they would discuss under the sheets. Hooked.

Lana did her part to a tee. Once Cecil bought into the idea that Frank’s skills were a money maker for him he treated Frank almost like a son he was so afraid that Frank would leave him in the lurch. When I would come around and make small talk with Lana he would ask her what gives, and she would answer that we were up and up friends just like I was with Cecil. Then she put the chill on him after that first couple of provocative moves when she would serve him diner in the back of the house kitchen. One time he half-grabbed and asked what gives, she couldn’t love that has been Cecil. She dismissed him with some bullshit about Cecil being her life-saver, a guy who took her out of the sewer, and get this, she was not going to give that up for some two-bit stranger who might be gone tomorrow. Yeah, she was a beaut. After that all she would do is give sly meaningful peeks and then turn her head and continue the deep freeze. She could tell, remember those generations of breeding, that genes stuff, he was gone on her and had to make her move after a couple of weeks or he really would fly the coop. One day, no night, as they were closing up, Nick was away with his drinking buddies from the VFW hall, Lana asked Frank to help her with a faulty lightbulb (it was just loose but that was because she had turned it a couple of times for her purposes). They got so close Frank couldn’t help himself and Lana just kind of leaned into him. Bang.

They quickly closed the diner shut out the lights and headed to his room in back of the garage. Down into the cotton sheets they did go with Lana giving Frank the full works about how she couldn’t stop herself from giving herself to Frank and had been cold to see if it was the real thing. She said it was. For the next couple of weeks whenever Cecil was out, one night they had actually hit the sheets right after Cecil went to bed Lana telling Frank that she couldn’t wait. All the while Lana could see something was eating at him, I could tell it too and so one night Frank laid out his problems, begged her to run away to Frisco town with him. Get a divorce from Cecil and they could get married and do whatever they wanted.  Lana sitting right next to him on the bed half naked said Cecil would never give her a divorce and would cheapskate on other stuff spent his last nickel to hunt them down. So no go. No soap.

That only got Frank more in a lather and a few days later he sprung his plan on her. Cecil had to be gotten rid of and he had a plan that would make it look like an accident. Then they would be free. Lana fake thought a moment and then rushed into Frank’s arms and said could it really be done. No even a moment’s hesitation that she was agreeing to kill her husband. Cool as a cucumber was the way she explained her play to me later. Well you know Cecil Kellaway is long dead so you know that they finally gave him the big sent-off although they actually botched the thing the first time. She was supposed to bop him on the head one night when he came home drunk and make a play like he had been a victim of some robbery gone bad. Well as she went to bop him the drunken fool slipped on his greasy diner floor and wound up in the hospital for a couple of weeks. She and Frank made no pretenses that they weren’t shacking up while he was away but that only made the play sounder, drew Frank tighter to Lana’s skirt when I thought about it later although I was plenty heated up that they were screwing for an extra few weeks on my time.

The next time out they were successful. Or Lana was since the play was to grab Cecil when he was in another drunken stupor and decided that he just needed to take a bath to wash away his sins or something. It had been a hot sultry night like we get in Southern California even few weeks and besides washing those sins clean Cecil had the fan next to him. Frank had expertly frayed the wires and so when old Cecil reached for it with those shaky hands of his he got the biggest jolt of his life. Took out the power of half the houses in that section of the Pacific Coast Highway.

Naturally as a friend of Cecil’s and as a vigilant D.A. I had to make sure that this “accident” after the first one wasn’t some kind of dastardly deed. I went at it tooth and prongs or rather I had my first Assistant D.A. Lou Reed pay extra attention to this case, cleared his case load so he could work solely on the case once Cecil’s friends and customers started their little campaign against Lana and Frank who after a very brief period of “mourning” were seen looking very contented. Lou got enough evidence, with my help, to bring Lana and Frank in for questioning and eventually Lou got indictments on the pair for murder, murder one. They were going to hang for their crimes if justice was to be satisfied. That is where my plan that I had kept from Lana came into play. I had intentionally not told her what I had up my sleeve for fear that she would spill the plan to Frank some hot steamy cotton sheets night to show him how clever she was to get out from under. Also I wanted her to play her part as expertly as possible and with a little doubt in her mind once things heated up and her sweet ass was on the line that would go a long way to effectuating my plan.   

Here is the beauty of the law, Anglo-American law anyway, once they try you for a crime and you get off then they can’t try and convict you again for that same crime. You might know what it is called, you know double jeopardy. It works equally according to blind lady justice for the guilty and innocent in the interest of finality of judgment. My plan was to bring the pair to trial on murder one which like any other crime requires a degree of certainty of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to gain a verdict. I knew that Lou did not have enough hard evidence in hand to convict but I kept badgering him to go to trial with what he had using the excuse that the voters were looking for some action on our part. Furthermore at trial I made sure that we had a jury packed with men, older men who would not mind looking at Lana even in a plain jane suit, hair up and no makeup. I got that jury nine men, all over forty, and three women who would have convicted Mary, you know, Jesus’ mother. To add some further protection I made sure that our star expert witness, the old rum-pot Sid Lance, who in his day was the best guy around if you wanted a conviction, to testify that those frayed wires could have been just worn out. Giving those eye-googling men a reason to acquit Lana and Frank. When the “not guilty” verdict, the postman’s first ring came in I could hardly work up enough energy to show distain for the verdict. I let Lou face the reporters alone pleading a headache that would not go away. 

The jailbirds free they went back to the diner and started making plans to turn the place into a road house figuring to draw attention from people who were interested in the seamy side of life and had a certain amount of confidence in those who got off scot-free on a murder one conviction. That was according to our plan to keep Frank around until Lana and I fled to parts unknown with some money I had from my wife’s trust and she now from Cecil’s life insurance. We would figure out the rest later when we were safely away.

Then the roof fell in. Then my world went awry, went to hell. Frank after a hard day’s work building a patio next to the diner for those who wanted dinner before they got soaked at the gambling tables, taken to heaven by some bent whore, or jack-rolled for drinks told Lana that they should go for a drive to the ocean down by Malibu where the waves were spectacular at that time of year. He had been drinking whisky and Lana had had a few too before they left. On that hard curve stretch after Oxnard they went off the road and down the hill to the ocean. As fate would have it Lana was killed instantly, a broken neck. Frank said he thought as they were tumbling down the hill that he heard her talking about the postman calling again but that may have just been Frank bullshit, Frank’s lies. Frank came out without a scratch which in the end was his misdoing.

I was in a rage. All my plans had gone up in smoke and the idea that I would have to finish my days with a wife whom I could barely stand to be in the same room with drove me to distraction. Frank would pay for his life with his life. As you know double jeopardy prevented Frank from being convicted on that Cecil murder but I made sure, double sure that he was done in for on the Lana murder. That is right. I went after him with a vengeance and brought back Sid Lance to “prove” conclusively before that same kind of male dominated jury that the brake linings had been worked on. My angle was that Frank had gotten greedy after their acquittal and wanted everything for himself. Guilty, guilty as charged after about three hours’ deliberation. Frank was going to smell some funny gas in the big sent-off. Funny he didn’t even bother to wage a big appeal because as he told Father Lally that few hours before death stood at his door he heard that postman’s second ring. And now so have I.                                                                                                                       

Happy Birthday *The "Mac Daddy" Of Modern Blues- Robert Johnson

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of early Robert Johnson work.

DVD REVIEW

Hell Hounds On His Heels- The Legendary Robert Johnson’s Story

Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl?: The Life And Music of Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson and various artists, narrated by Danny Glover, 1997

I have recently spent some little effort making comparisons between old time country blues singers. My winners have been Skip James and Son House. Apparently, if the story behind the Robert Johnson story presented here is right I am in a minority compared to the like of guitarists Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. So be it. After viewing this very informative bio, complete with the inevitable “talking heads" that populate these kinds of film efforts I still have that same opinion, except I would hold Johnson’s version of his “Sweet Home, Chicago” in higher regard after listening to it here. Previously many other covers of the song, including the trendy Blues Brothers version seemed better, a lot better.

The producers of this film have spend some time and thought on presentation. The choice of Danny Glover as expressive and thoughtful narrator was a welcome sign. Having Johnson road companion and fellow blues artist, Johnny Shines, give insights into Johnson’s work habits, traveling ways, womanizing, whiskey drinking and off-center personality make this a very strong film. Add in footage of Son House (an early Johnson influence) and various other Delta artists who met or were met by Johnson along the way and one gets the feeling that this is more a labor of love than anything else. For a man who lived fast, died young and left a relatively small body of work (some 20 odd songs)this is a very good take on Robert Johnson. I might add that if Johnson is your number one blues man this film gives you plenty of ammunition for your position.

Note: As is almost universally true with such film endeavors we only get snippets of the music. I would have liked to hear a full “Preacher’s Blues”, “Sweet Home, Chicago”, "Terraplane Blues” and “Hell Hounds On My Heels” but for that one will have to look elsewhere.

"Terraplane Blues" lyrics-Robert Johnson

And I feel so lonesome
you hear me when I moan
When I feel so lonesome
you hear me when I moan
Who been drivin my terraplane
for you since I've been gone
I'd said I flashed your lights mama
your horn won't even blow
I even flash my lights mama
this horn won't even blow
Got a short in this connection
hoo-well, babe, its way down below
I'm on hist your hood momma
I'm bound to check your oil
I'm on hist your hood momma mmmm
I'm bound to check your oil
I got a woman that I'm lovin
way down in Arkansas
Now you know the coils ain't even buzzin
little generator won't get the spark
Motors in a bad condition
you gotta have these batteries charged
But I'm cryin please
please don't do me wrong
Who been drivin my terraplane now for
you-hoo since I've been gone
Mr Highwayman
please don't block the road
Puh hee hee
ple-hease don't block the road
Casue she's restrin (?) a cold one hindred
and I'm booked I gotta go
Mmm mmm
mmmm mmmm mmm
You ooo oooo oooo
you hear me weep and moan
Who been drivin my terraplane
for you since I've been gone
I'm on get deep down in this connection
keep on tanglin with your wires
I'm on get deep down in this connection
hoo-well keep on tanglin with your wires
And when I mash down your little starter
then your spark plug will give me a fire.

Happy Birthday Robert Johnson -The "Kings" Of "Dinkytown"** In Their Prime- Spider John Koerner/Dave Ray/Tony Glover

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of the Tony Glover-directed film documentary "Blues, Rags & Hollers" from 1986 that forms a nice sequel to this CD done in 1963.

**Dinkytown refers to the student/hip ghetto, etc. of Minneapolis back in the days (and perhaps today as well). It also seemingly reflects on the range of the Koerner/Ray/Glover ambition.

CD Review

Blues, Rags& Hollers, Koerner, Ray& Glover, Vanguard Records, 1963

*The “Kings Of Dinkytown**” -The “Spider Man” Is In The House- The Music Of Folk’s Spider John Koerner and Sidekicks Dave Ray And Tony Glover

In a review of Spider John Koerner’s CD “Stargeezer” earlier this year I made the following comment that related to a question I was then asking about the fate of various male folk singers from the folk revival of the 1960s:

“Okay, Okay those of you who have been keeping tabs know that I have spend much of the last year, when not doing political commentary or book or movie reviews, reviewing many of the old time folk artists that, along with the blues, were the passion of my youth in the early 1960's. You might also know, if you are keeping tabs, that I have been attempting to answer a question that I have posed elsewhere in this space earlier about the fate or fates of various performers from that period. Spider John Koerner was a lesser known, but important, fixture on the Cambridge/Boston folk scene during that time, as well as later once the hubbub died down and he and a local stalwart, Mr. Bones, carried on the tradition in smaller venues and in front of smaller crowds.”

Well, here we go back to the basics of why I attentively listened to an old folk radio on late Sunday nights during my youth in order to learn what Koerner /Ray/Glover were up as they tried, and succeeded although it was a near thing, to translate their love of the blues in its country form into something that whites could appreciate and blacks could respect. Forty plus years out we know that white guys (and gals) can sing the blues, a bit differently from black guys (and gals) but the blues nevertheless. Tops on my list here are their version of the Robert Johnson/Elmore James classic "Dust My Broom" and the Blind Lemon Jefferson-inspired "One Kind Favor".

Song Lyrics: I Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Written and recorded by: Robert Johnson (1936)--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm goin' get up in the mornin', I believe I'll dust my broom
I'm goin' get up in the mornin', I believe I'll dust my broom
Girlfriend, the black man you been lovin', girlfriend, can get my room

I'm gon' write a letter, telephone every town I know
I'm gon' write a letter, telephone every town I know
If I can't find her in West Helena, she must be in East Monroe I know

I don't want no woman, wants every downtown man she meet
I don't want no woman, wants every downtown man she meet
She's a no good doney, they shouldn't allow her on the street

I believe, I believe I'll go back home
I believe, I believe I'll go back home
You can mistreat me here, babe, but you can't when I go home

And I'm gettin' up in the mornin', I believe I'll dust my broom
I'm gettin' up in the mornin', I believe I'll dust my broom
Girlfriend, the black man you been lovin', girlfriend, can get my room

I'm gonna call up Chiney, see is my good girl over there
I'm gonna call up China, see is my good girl over there
'F I can't find her on Philippine's island, she must be in Ethiopia somewhere


© (1978) 1990, 1991 Lehsem II, LLC/Claud L. Johnson
Administered by Music & Media International, Inc.

Robert Johnson
(Robert Leroy Johnson)
May 8, 1911 - August 16, 1938


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Dust My Broom"
Lyrics as rewritten recorded by Elmore James
(Based on Robert Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom")
(Song Recorded - 1959)

I'm gettin' up soon in the mornin'
I believe I'll dust my broom
I'm gettin' up soon in the mornin'
I believe I'll dust my broom
I quit the best girl I'm lovin',
now my friends can get in my room

I'm gonna write a letter, telephone every town I know
I'm gonna write a letter, telephone every town I know
If I don't find her in Mississippi,
she be in East Monroe I know

And I don't want no woman,
wants every downtown man she meets
No I don't want no woman,
wants every downtown man she meets
Man, she's a no good doney,
they shouldn't allow her on the street, yeah

I believe, I believe my time ain't long
I believe, I believe my time ain't long
I ain't gonna leave my baby,
and break up my happy home

50 Years Gone The Father We Almost Knew One Jack Kerouac Out Of Merrimack River Nights-Searching For The Father We Never Knew-Scenes In Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-New Jack City Blues, Circa 1950s

50 Years Gone The Father We Almost Knew One Jack Kerouac Out Of Merrimack River Nights-Searching  For The Father We Never Knew-Scenes In Search Of The Blue-Pink Great American West Night-New Jack City Blues, Circa 1950s 

By Seth Garth, known back then as Charles River Blackie for no other reason than he slept along those banks, the Cambridge side and some raggedy ass wino who tried to cut him under the Anderson Bridge one night called him that and it stuck. Those wino-sapped bums, piss leaky tramps and poet-king hoboes all gone to some graven spot long ago from drink, drug, or their own hubris which they never understood. Gone and the moniker too.  

New York City, 1950s New Jack City for the jack-worthy, not big enough for million-worded jacks (or jills), not in the end. In the end he, they, needed the road, the wide open roads west, the transcontinental riff calling, the Route 6, 66, 666 (the latter  a pact with the devil, or the devil’s master, some deal to write that second million words of  the legend-in-the- making a tough task with short stub green miniature golf pencil and Bridge Street Woolworth’s 5&10 stub of a notebook eased in Jack flannel shirt buttoned pocket), the great thruways aborning. Ike’s work to make a crisp-cross pattern, Interstate 90, 95, 10 maybe another pact with the devil, or the devil’s master 666. Passing (if they could ever get that first hitchhike ride out of the city) dusty dutch red barn farms, steel cities achingly filled with lonesome story bus stops and stinking urinals, dirty , and always too big passengers in the next seat who snored, who spread their mass on fallow shoulders, passing auto cities filled with hungry, great depression hungry workers looking to make their first down payments on a dream, a dream car to quell their restless search, and maybe some little white picket fenced house to anoint their red scare cold war night, to be on the right side of the angels for once. Shoving into hog butcher to the world Chi town, all brawny and beef, all a place to move west, and move fast to avoid Joliet blues like a million Muddys coming from old Parchman’s Farm Mississippi Delta south up Highway 61 , down along the silty Big Muddy and then to the great expanse, the Dakotas with their forlorn look, and their young desperate to head west and become drugstore movie stars, following their okie-arkie brethren further south who made the trek a generation before and were now stranded in some Pomona shopping plaza wondering what the hell it was all about, or roaming those Pacific coast highways in their jalopies, their hot money hot rods looking for the heart of Saturday night, or lucky blonde-headed boys, maybe tow-headed with placid bikini girls waiting on beach blankets in the days when young women did such thing searching for that perfect wave down in the La Jollas of the world .

Pushing, ever pushing west, on into junction Denver searching for the ghost of the cowboy past in Larimer Street pool halls, barrooms, and clip joints (and maybe an untoward whorehouse), looking for golden all-American Old West cowboy dreams. Those cowboys now gainfully employed at Jimmy Jack’s Diner flipping burgers and lies about how a man was still a man even behind a sturdy white splotched apron. Onward out of the flame-thrown Rockies and down into dinosaur death Utah and then the Nevadas, Winnemucca dry holes a specialty just don’t get caught out there on that hitchhike road. And then Land’s End golden gate rust pacific sitting on the rim of the world Frisco town and flowers and blossoms in the foggy North Beach night. But all this later.  For now though life is, life is New Jack City, and the strange neon night rhythms.                

Yah, for a while you could hear that old caged bird sing, hear sing some our lady of the flowers Billie Holiday body and soul lover’s lament, some blues from deep down in the Mother Africa night, some café cabaret ghost of the Cotton Club (filled with hard boys named Dutch looking to breakout by nay means necessary so watch out) swing low, swing misty, swing along nod sway song, maybe a little boy-juiced, but swaying. Something in that phrasing she had, Billie that is, that half pause before she set up the snarling upper lip to speak of endless sorrows, endless sorrows endured in America, unrelieved, unrelieved except through blood-scarred arms. Some junkie backstairs fixer man death trap awaits her like Some Dizzy dizzy salt peanuts tune, maybe a little tea-time dizzy, some high white note stuff every once in a while just to keep things interesting, blowing man blow about two, maybe three, in the morning playing chords, playing progressions most of night to keep the fidgety fickle customers glued to their tables, drinking high- shelf liquor and maybe riffing a little for the regulars at the bar, the hip cats who didn’t even dare show up until one, maybe later, and got ready to blow from his toes you could tell, tell by the hour, tell by how he held the notes on that last song blast. Yah, he was going to blow that pure note if it took until dawn and then that note and that sun rising could fight it out. And that note was going to win, if not that night then sometime but in the meantime here he was in his entire be-bop high blown splendor. Or some, well just name your cool as a cucumber jazzman, Lester blowing that big sexy sultry sax at the end, the Prez working that blast for all it was worth, letting the air out and filling up again just like some oxygen mask, blowing pass the audience into his own eden, beautiful, and the hipsters too hip to clap, rude crowd clap, just point their solo index fingers at the max daddy and he just tips his solo index finger back to the brotherhood.

On and on in the New York jazz night, on Gerry, on Dave Brubeck, on Charlie angel Gabriel trumpet blowing early in the morning down his own private Birdland , some more experimental guys, Monk, mad monk riff piano riffing monk , on top of the heap. All saints, all angels early morning (when else?) sweaty in a hundred cool as a cucumber midnight cafes, The Swan, The Gaslight, Benny’s, The Hi Hat, and the beloved Red Fez (red to make you sunset dream, red to take away the red scare night straight up in the free-wheeling refuge town,  sunset red tea dream to see and long for ancient dreams, fez to make you think Africa calling, Africa finally calling home her children), all drawing, drawing can you believe this, the Mayfair swells like in old Duke Cotton Club high Harlem night Scott Fitzgerald bathtub gin jazz age time.

Time Square, eternal home to every Hoboken hipster forced to flee for non-payment of rent, every Ithaca spinster angel looking for some Boston marriage far from prying eyes, every broken dream okie farm boy useless on the dust bowl farm and itching to get at those women, those easy city women he heard about on the radio or in some forbidden magazine, after a steady diet of dried- out high hell fundamentalist girls aching for the lord and a fistful of kids to take away the empty soul of the black, true black starless prairie nights after a proper marriage, every arkie  beauty queen who could not survive the rarified airs of  “take it all off sister” or being  ass-pinched by hot rod valley boys waiting impatiently for hamburgers and fries in the blossoming Hollywood car hop nights and who couldn’t go home to Helena, every drifter, grafter, grafter and midnight sifter working the flamed never-ending lights of hell. Lit up, neon- lit, gas-lit, 24/7/365-lit, lit to the gills, lit against the jack-rolling crime night (see above for candidates, jack-rollers in waiting, if the occasion arises) back alley big city simplicity itself just some chain, or an off-hand pipe, behind the knees, crumple easy to the ground, grab the dough, up and out to some whore blow, dope blow, whisky blow.

Out in the flamed, never ending lights of hell-lit up, lit against the gang night, Central Park mainly, and some off streets down in Little Italy and up in high Harlem, 125^th Street anyway, lit against the rough trade Genet night sailor boys fresh from the wharves, Hudson wharves, East River wharves, flush with just off the boat pay-off cash, looking for chain-whip kicks, some diva delight, some fresh leather boy too. Lit against the sad sin sexless sex night, some anonymous Lansing, Muncie, Omaha corn-fed young thing, maybe like her older arkie sister a beauty queen who headed east instead of west to get into the theater or some concert hall, shapely, good legs, working hips, tired of light-less farms and farm fields headed to the big city, headed up 42^nd street instead of Broadway or the Village and wound up with big faded dreams calling out “hey mister, want a good time,” or maybe stoned to the gills just nods, stoop nods, symbolically showing a good time just by her uniform, that split pea dress showing plenty of thigh, those long black nylon stockings, and that kewpie doll smile, all yours for the price of a needle, a room, and some pimp’s damn cut or, hell, when the spiral goes down some quickie back alley head and a quick napkin spit wipe, jesus. Watch out for the jack-rollers honey though, especially watch out for those damn jack-rollers you earned your money, earned it hard, and she maybe thinking to herself if old farm boy love Roy could see me now, later to be turned over to some Jersey whorehouse and work by the bell. Go home sister, go home, now.  New Jack was just too big for you.

Wall Street, pass, this is not about coupon-clipping, okay. Although on other days some guys might like to kick that can down the road a bit.  Madison Avenue, pass, this is not about subliminal desires and tricks, well- meaning Vance Packard to the contrary. Park Avenue, pass, well, maybe half-pass, maybe half pass looking for princesses (WASP, Jewish, does it matter as long as they are looking for down at the end of the road beat brothers, and have the money, not some trust fund tied- up and handed out nickels and dimes stuff but real cash) looking for kicks before they run off to the Hamptons and later the Connecticut shoreline bedroom communities with their soft felt hat train-catching for the city stockbroker lovers. Just kicks though, no stir time stuff, not with daddy warbucks on the warpath, not with his Pinkertons, and not with his pen dripped in ink just that minute re-writing the terms of his will. Or maybe catch some off-hand wild thing, maybe jail bail, pray to god not, looking to break out, like the beat boys and girls, from the bourgeois high society (not beat high, reefer high, benny high, boy high, cousin high) but from same old same old Fifth Avenue parties, some freak-out boarding school and Miss Prissy’s finishing school. Jesus.

Yah, a quick stop to check for those looking for jack night thrills to fill up, fill up like some gas tank, their beat souls, or looking for some golden cowboy, some fast flash wind from the west, fresh from stir, all Paul Newman beautiful, and those blue eyes, those Ladies’ Room tittle blue eyes, and someone will spell it out, bedroom eyes, new to the city, and woman hungry, take no prisoners, or maybe checking for those looking  for some poor boy sailor boy  just off the ships just got paid Genet boys rough stuff. Down some dark wharf street, down some tavern end of the dock street, and secret dreams, but such rarified tastes are dangerous, dangerous indeed.  

Up to Columbia, the university, of course, ivy-covered, respectable for a minute (before the 1960s heist of all property when it was merely an Ivy outpost in a brazen, bare knuckles city), a minute when some buzz came breezing in, the beat boys and girls came breezing in, came through the portals, hah, the groves of academia. And Jack and Allen and kindred teased the city dry, blew town, went out on the pioneer highways just like the forbears, saw majestic and crude things, did majestic and crude things, smoked some dope, made some love, drank some cheap Tokay wine, and oh yes, unchained, unhinged Eliot and Wolfe language from its throne moorings, and created some flash beat to be listened to elsewhere, elsewhere in the land’s end rusted golden gate sun. 

The Village of course (those who need to know what village just move on), the clubs and nooks already mentioned, jazz, folk rearing its head, more jazz, some poetry on an off night, the beat poets reading their beat poems to a famished world (or slender slice of it), the streets of dreams not mentioned, Bleecker, McDougall on up to Canal,  the safe harbor, hell, sanctuary for those blown away by the cold war red scare night, not just reds, and pinks, and maybe white pinks, but all mother nature’s odd and damaged, the beat poem listen to hangers-on for sure, the morphine kickers looking for sure connections and some walking daddy to be-bop with when the crash came, the rough trade boys, reading Genet in some tavern back room in translation, tired of hell angels beating up on them without style, plainsong fags tired of dating someone’s sister as a favor and ready to face the cops’ bull if only to have a few nights of boy love without being run out of a Podunk town on a rail, same, same for those weary of those Boston marriages and tired of wearing men’s clothing in private Beacon Street Boston rooms, art guys by the biz-illion, Jackson this, Larry that, Motherwell this and that, enough art to paint the world, all abstract and symbolic, all death to sweet Madonna slash dabbed in the night.           

Movie houses, movie theaters, all sweet black and white stark, all New Jack city eight million stories stark, and, and, uh, art films for the discreet, of men in raincoats stinking of urine or Thunderbird wines, of endless overflow from Times Square (or run out) drifters, grifters, grafters, midnight sifters, hustling, always hustling like some rats on speed, of mad men and monks, and semi-monks disguised as poets, of street poet gangsters all shiny words and a gun at your head to say yes you liked  the last verse, of Gregory Corso, of muggers and minstrels, of six dollar whores for a quickie, of twelve dollar whores who will take you around the world, of neon signs, night and day, of neon cars and car -beams night and day, of trash spread every which way, of the flotsam and jetsam of human existence cloistered against 42^nd Street hurts.

Of  Howard Johnson’s franks, mustard, relish, onions, go ahead the works, eaten by the half dozen to curb hungers, not food hungers but hungers that dare not speak their name, not sex but fame, fresh off the Port Authority bus, of  Joe and Nemo’s two o’clock fatty griddle hamburgers, the works again, please, of fags (bothering guys in public toilets, jesus), and fairies, all dressed up and rouged ready for some gentleman caller, and, shade distant dreams, of quasi-Trotskyite girl lovers taking a rest from their bourgeois travels who loved truth, truth and dark-haired revolutionary French guys from textile mill lowells, all proletarian Lowell, and can write too, write one million words on order, and perform, on cue, stalinite-worthy betrayals with some new found friend’s wife, or husband, of Siberia exile of the mind, and of second on word writes all while riding the clattering subway to and fro crosstown, not to speak of Soho or the Bronx . And of junkies of every description, morphine, speed, cocaine, and of hustlers pushing their soft wares, call your poison, step right up, of William Burroughs, of deadly terror at the prospects for the next fix, of human mules, gringos, poor boy Nuevo York gringos trying to get ahead of the curve, and just looking for kicks, face down in some dusty Sonora town dead, nameless, thankless, dead, failing to make that connection to get them well, and of off-hand Federales- forgotten murders too.  Jesus suffering humanity. New Jack City.

19 April 2019 California Moratorium Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! Last month, California, which leads the country with the highest number of prisoners condemned to die at the hands of the state, granted a temporary reprieve to its 737 death row inmates.

Workers Vanguard No. 1153	19 April 2019

California Moratorium

Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!

Last month, California, which leads the country with the highest number of prisoners condemned to die at the hands of the state, granted a temporary reprieve to its 737 death row inmates. Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, referring to the death penalty as “unjust” and “wasteful,” signed an executive order that closes the notorious death chamber at San Quentin State Prison and repeals California’s lethal injection protocols for the duration of his tenure. The moratorium on executions takes place against the backdrop of rising public opposition to capital punishment and debates over what constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” The order also explicitly cites the high costs associated with capital punishment, reflecting the financial calculations of a wing of the ruling class.

Any measure that stays the hand of the state’s executioners, such as the California moratorium, is welcome. As Marxists, we do not accord the capitalist state the right to decide who lives and who dies, and we oppose the death penalty on principle—for the guilty as well as the innocent. The death penalty is cruel and barbaric. Its endurance in the U.S., alone among advanced capitalist countries aside from Japan, is the racist legacy of centuries of slavery and segregation, the lynch rope made legal. Indeed, the majority of executions have taken place in states of the former Confederacy, and black people have always been sentenced to death in disproportionately large numbers. Today, they make up 42 percent of those on death row nationwide, while accounting for only 13 percent of the population.

At the same time, we recognize that even the abolition of the death penalty will not change the violent and oppressive nature of capitalist class rule. It will not free the innocent languishing in America’s dungeons, alter conditions for those suffering the torture of prison hell or change the reality of cops gunning down black and Latino youth who are depicted as inherent criminals by this country’s rulers. Newsom made clear he did not plan to overturn any of the death sentences, pledging that “no one who commits a heinous crime will avoid swift and severe punishment, including a life behind bars.” His successor will have the option of restarting the killing machine.

On April 1, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed its support to the death penalty in the case of Russell Bucklew, upholding the planned lethal injection of the Missouri inmate, who risks choking and suffocating on his own blood due to a rare medical condition. According to the majority opinion, the Constitution “does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death.” The ruling ignited a wave of liberal condemnation of Republican-appointed justices. There was no similar outcry in 2016 when all but one of the liberals on the court supported reimposing the death sentence on two men in Kansas. As these decisions show, the high court of racist American capitalism is a reactionary institution, no matter who sits on the bench.

Exposure of cases of innocent people sentenced to death or executed, combined with a series of botched executions, has stoked growing popular hostility to the death penalty. Significant elements of the ruling class uphold it as the weapon of the state’s ultimate authority. Reactionaries often justify it with reference to religious notions like “an eye for an eye.”

The death penalty also serves as a way for the rulers to exact revenge on those who refuse to be bowed. There is a long history of its use against labor militants, such as the Haymarket martyrs in 1887, and fighters for black rights. Such was also the case with the 2005 legal lynching of Stanley Tookie Williams in California, who had been convicted of four murders. Williams, who always maintained his innocence, became an anti-gang and anti-crime crusader in prison, as portrayed in the docudrama Redemption. But because Williams refused to confess, the state killed him, sending the message that black life counts for nothing. The authorities were especially infuriated that he had dedicated his 1998 book, Life in Prison, to George Jackson, Mumia Abu-Jamal and others imprisoned for their political views.

Newsom’s recent move was hardly a bold initiative. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment, and the governors of four other states have issued moratoriums. Two decades ago, George Ryan, the Republican governor of Illinois, temporarily halted executions there and commuted over 160 death sentences.

One can only marvel at the hypocrisy of California politicians fawning over how that “blue state” now shows the way to a more “humane” criminal justice system. Its prisons are among the worst of the worst in terms of overcrowding, lack of medical care and abuse by guards. Horrific conditions in the solitary isolation chambers at the supermax Pelican Bay State Prison sparked a two-month hunger strike by prisoners in 2013. During last year’s nationwide prison strike, California inmates denounced despicable labor conditions as “modern day slavery,” pointing to their enlistment in the dangerous job of fighting wildfires, for which they received $1 an hour plus $2 a day.

The death penalty is at the pinnacle of the capitalist class’s monopoly of organized violence against those it subjugates—the working class, black people and all the oppressed. The cops, courts, prisons and military are the core of the capitalist state, whose purpose is to defend the rule and profits of the exploiters. We oppose the entire machinery of state repression.

One week before Newsom announced the moratorium, Sacramento exploded in protest over the decision not to prosecute the police who killed Stephon Clark a year ago. The unarmed 22-year-old black man was gunned down in a hail of 20 bullets while standing in his grandmother’s backyard. California attorney general Xavier Becerra excused the killers on the grounds that they had reason to fear their lives were in “imminent danger.” Becerra has also refused to release the records of crimes committed by the police, as was mandated under a state law enacted last year.

Democrats: False Friends of the Oppressed

Newsom’s claim that the death penalty is a “failure” received kudos from a number of “law and order” Democrats. One such is 2020 presidential contender Kamala Harris, who as San Francisco district attorney (2004-11) and California attorney general (2011-17) fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions and pack black and brown people off to prison. Today, Senator Harris proclaims that she opposes capital punishment because it is “immoral, discriminatory, ineffective and a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.” Her actual track record, though, is one of defense of California’s death penalty, including by successfully appealing a 2014 federal court ruling that declared it unconstitutional.

Harris was also key in maintaining the racist conviction of Kevin Cooper, a black man framed up and sentenced to death for the 1983 murder of a white family. Repeated requests for advanced DNA testing by Cooper’s defense attorney to prove that the police had tampered with evidence were turned down by Harris and former Democratic governor Jerry Brown. Only after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an exposé on Cooper’s case last May did she cynically proclaim: “As a firm believer in DNA testing, I hope the governor and the state will allow for such testing.”

The Democratic Party is nothing but the other party of racist capitalist rule. Liberal darling Bernie Sanders, who is supported by an array of fake-socialist groups like the Democratic Socialists of America, has declared his opposition to the death penalty, offering that “the state itself, in a democratic, civilized society, should itself not be involved in the murder of other Americans.” Sanders has made a career out of serving the interests of America’s “civilized” imperialist rulers, who commit mass murder, both at home and abroad.

Sanders voted for Bill Clinton’s 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which vastly expanded the list of federal crimes punishable by death, provided for putting 100,000 more cops on the streets and devoted billions more to prison funding. He voted for the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which virtually eliminated habeas corpus appeals in state courts for those sentenced to death, even in the face of compelling evidence of wrongful conviction or even actual innocence. The prison population exploded and the assembly line of death was kicked into high gear, with 98 executions in 1999.

We Marxists recognize that the brutal and depraved rule of the bourgeoisie cannot be reformed. Our purpose is to forge a revolutionary workers party that can infuse the working class with the understanding that the entire capitalist state apparatus must be swept away by proletarian socialist revolution. When those who labor rule, the racist death penalty will be abolished for good, as one of the initial steps in the emancipation of all the exploited and oppressed.

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *The Dreams Of Childhood… And Adulthood - The Music Of Priscilla Herdman

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Christie Moore performing "John O' Dreams".

CD Review

Moondreamer, Priscilla Herdman, Redwing Music, 1998

Sometimes you find out about a singer straight up, through a record, on the radio, a concert, or…”YouTube”. Sometimes the route is more circuitous. That is the case here with singer/songwriter Priscilla Herdman. I first hear her doing a duet with the old Wobblie, singer/storyteller/ folk historian Utah Phillips on his song “I Remember Loving You”. Of course, for this old folk devotee anyone that has Phillips’ imprimatur on him or her bears further investigation. That is part of the reason that I know about the work of Kate Wolf, for one.

So here we are. And what we have with this presentation are lullabies and other “soft” songs for adults and …children. Well, that is okay, too. Sometimes this is just the kind of “dreamy” music that fits those moments just before slumber time, for adults and kids alike. The best to do just that are “John O’ Dreams”, “Moon And Me”, and “Stars On The Water”.

John O'Dreams Lyrics

[G]When midnight comes and people[C] homeward [G]tread,
Seek out your blanket and your[C] feathered[G] bed,
Home comes the[D] rover,his journey's[G] over
Yield up the night time to old[C] John O[G]'Dreams
Yield up the night time to old[C] John O'[G]Dreams
[2]
Across the hill the sun has gone astray
Tomorrows cares are many dreams away
The stars are flying,your candle's dying
Yield up the night time to oldJohn O'Dreams
Yield up the night time to old John O'Dreams
[3]
Both man and master in the night are one
All things are equal when the day is done
The prince and the ploughman,the slave the free man
All find their comfort in old John O'Dreams
All find their comfort in old John O'Dreams
[4]
When sleep it comes the dreams come running clear
The hawks of morning cannot reach you here
Sleep is a river,flow on for ever
And for your boatman choose old John O'Dreams
Yes for your boatman choose old John O'Dreams

From The Archives- The 50th Anniversary Of Love- Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Butterfly Swirl Swirled- A CD Review

The 50th Anniversary Of Love- Out In The Be-Bop 1960s Night- When Butterfly Swirl Swirled- A CD Review

CD Review

Classic Rock: 1964, various artists, Time-Life Music, 1987
Scene brought to mind by the cover art that graces this CD. Said cover art showing in the background a motley foursome from some post- British invasion invasion group but in the foreground the object our, ah, inspection, one female earring bejeweled but more importantly day-glo, or if not day-glo then some non-toxic paint celebration, painted flower. Immediately bringing to my memory’s eye on Kathleen Callahan, a. k. a. Butterfly Swirl, Carlsbad (California, that’s important) Class of 1968 and Josh Breslin’s old flame from the summer of love, 1967 version, circa San Francisco in the merry prankster, yellow brick road night. Of course, as always in the interest of full disclosure, Ms. Swirl was my girl, very much my girl, until old Josh, Olde Saco High School Class of 1967 (that’s up in Maine, although that is not important to the story, or just a little) showed up on Russian Hill one fine day and, well, “stole” her from me. That too is not important to the story, except maybe to explain, a little, the kind of gal Kathleen was. What is important is how she came to be, not even out of high school yet, Butterfly Swirl.

No question in 1957 or 1977 Kathleen Callahan, brown hair, bright smile, good figure, great legs and an irksomely sunny disposition would have been just Kathleen Callahan, maybe the head cheerleader at some suburban school, some seaside suburban school like Carlsbad just norte of San Diego, Or, more realistically given that locale, some dippy surfer joe girl watching while they were hanging five or ten or whatever they did to those LaJolla, Malibu, Carlsbad waves that weren’t harming anybody as they slipped tepidly to shore. And, as she later confessed to Josh she actually had been a surfer joe girl, although the guy’s name was Spin Curley, nice right.

And then the 1964 British invasion came, and she, all of thirteen, although fully formed in lots of ways as she also told Josh and she was swept away, swept away from the silly little surfer girl life, small seaside everybody abode-housed Spanish fandango and the inevitably Spin. She told Josh it was really the Kinks that got her off-center. Not the Beatles or Rolling Stones as you might think. She said she was mad for their You Really Got Me, it kind of turned her on, turned her on a lot. A lot more than Spin could deal with what with his having to hang five or ten out in mother nature wave land. So naturally she headed to Los Angeles to check things out for a few days. Her and another girl, whose story can be summed up in one word-bonkers. Heavy metal pedal drug bonkers.

But she, that girl, get this, already had a moniker, Serendipity Swan, and knew some real cool people that she had met down at LaJolla where they were taking care of some rich guy’s estate (they are all estates in that zip code, then known as postal zones). This rich guy got rich, got very rich by “inventing” acid (LSD), or something like that. Or knew guys who invented it, or something like that. But in any case, the guy taking care of the estate, Captain Crunch and his confederates were always high, always on the move with their merry prankster yellow brick road bus and always welcoming to lost lambs, and ex-surfer girls. And that was how a couple of years before Kathleen, who had not then metamorphosized ed into Butterfly Swirl, kind of at wit’s end, eventually came up further north. And that is how I met her, and Josh too. Here’s the funny part though, as things got weird on the bus, or too weird for her and her embedded suburban girl manner (when she wasn’t high, high she was like a Buddha or Siva or whatever those divines are called) she hankered (my word) for home, and for her Spin and his hanging five or ten, or whatever he did to those waves. Like I said in 1957 or 1977 she wouldn’t have even been “on the bus.” But just for that 1967 minute, driven by those wicked Brits she broke free. Josh looked for her later but never caught up to her again.

The Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- California Dreamin’- The Music Of The Mamas And The Papas

The Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love- California Dreamin’- The Music Of The Mamas And The Papas

The Best of the Mamas and the Papas, The Mamas and the Papas, SPA, 1998

Over the past couple of years I have reviewed a fair number of performers from the folk revival of the 1960s. Looking over quickly the names of those reviewed discloses a personal predilection for individual performers, although there were plenty of good to excellent groups around at the time, like the New Lost City Ramblers, The Greenbriar Boys, The Chambers Brothers, The Clancy Brothers, and other such groups who did traditional folk music.

As folk evolved, in the mid-1960s, a little away from those more traditional forms and into something like folk rock, younger groups picked up on the spirit of the movement with their own more modern lyrics and more harmonic works. The classic example in this genre would probably be Peter, Paul and Mary but the group under review, the Mamas and the Papas, also fits that description as well. Led vocally by big-voiced "Mama" Cass and with lyrics written by lead male singer "Papa" John Phillips the group had a number of hits in that folk rock moment, many of them on this compilation.

So what is still good almost half a century later? Well, "California Dreamin" still holds its own as a signature song for the foursome. As does "Monday, Monday" and "Words Of Love". The real surprise is their cover of the old Benny King classic (written by Jerry Leiber and Phil Spector), "Spanish Harlem". That song also displays the great harmonics, the feel and balance, as well as the understated performance that was the M&P hallmark.

California Dreamin' Lyrics-John Phillips, Michelle Phillips

All the leaves are brown
(All the leaves are brown)
And the sky is gray.
(And the sky is gray).
I've been for a walk
(I've been for a walk)
On a winter's day.
(On a winter's day).

I'd be safe and warm
(I'd be safe and warm)
if I was in L.A.
(If I was in L.A.)
California dreamin'
(California dreamin') on such a winter's day.

Stopped in to a church I passed along the way.
Well I got down on my knees
(got down on my knees)
And I pretend to pray.
(I pretend to pray).
You know the preacher likes the cold.
(preacher likes the cold).
He knows I'm gonna stay.
(knows I'm gonna stay).
California dreamin'
(California dreamin') on such a winter's day.

(Bridge)

All the leaves are brown
(All the leaves are brown)
And the sky is gray.
(And the sky is gray).
I've been for a walk
(I've been for a walk)
On a winter's day.
(On a winter's day).

If I didn't tell her
(If I didn't tell her)
I could leave today.
(I could leave today).
California dreamin' (California dreamin')on such a winter's day,
California dreamin' on such a winter's day,
California dreamin' on such a winter's day.

Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

In Honor Of The Late Rocker Chuck Berry Who Helped Make It All Possible-Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

CD Review

Bo Diddley: Two On One, Bo Diddley, Chess Records, 1986

Well, there is no need to pussy foot around on this one. The question before the house is who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And here in this Chess Records double CD, Bo Diddley unabashedly stakes his claim that was featured in a song by the same name, except, except it starts out with the answer. Yes, Bo Diddley put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And off his performance here as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the tidal wave of rock that swept through the post-World War II teenage population in 1955 he has some “street cred” for that proposition.

Certainly there is no question that black music, in the early 1950s at least, previously confined to mainly black audiences down on the southern farms and small segregated towns and in the northern urban ghettos along with a ragtag coterie of “hip” whites is central to the mix that became classic 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. That is not to deny the other important thread commonly called rockabilly (although if you had scratched a rockabilly artist and asked him or her for a list of influences black gospel and rhythm and blues would be right at the top of their list, including Elvis’). But here let’s just go with the black influences. No question Ike Turner’s Rocket 88, Joe Turner’s Shake , Rattle and Roll and, I would add, Elmore James’ Look Yonder Wall are nothing but examples of R&B starting to break to a faster, more nuanced rock beat.

Enter one Bo Diddley. No only does he have the old country blues songbook down, and the post- World War II urbanization and electrification of those blues down, but he reaches back to the oldest traditions of black music, back before the American slavery plantations days, back to the Carib influences and even further back to earth mother African shores. In short, that “jungle music,” that “devil’s music” that every white mother and father (and not a few black ones as well), north and south was worried, no, frantically worried, would carry away their kids. Well, it did and we are none the worst for it.

Here is a little story from back in the 1950s days though that places old Bo’s claim in perspective and addresses the impact (and parental horror) that Bo and rock had on teenage (and late pre-teenage) kids, even all white “projects” kids like me and my boys. In years like 1955, ’56, ’57 every self-respecting teenage boy (or almost teenage boy), under the influence of television, tried, one way or another, to imitate Elvis. From dress, to sideburns, to swiveling hips, to sneer. Hell, I even bought a doo-wop comb to wear my hair like his. I should qualify that statement a little and say every self-respecting boy who was aware of girls. And, additionally, aware that if you wanted to get any place with them, any place at all, you had better be something like the second coming of Elvis.

Enter now, one eleven year old William James Bradley, “Billie”, my bosom buddy in old elementary school days. Billie was wild for girls way before I acknowledged their existence, or at least their charms. Billie decided, and rightly so I think, to try a different tack. Instead of forming the end of the line in the Elvis imitation department he decided to imitate Bo Diddley. At this time we are playing the song Bo Diddley and, I think, Who Do You Love? like crazy. Elvis bopped, no question. But Bo’s beat spoke to something more primordial, something connected, unconsciously to our way back ancestry. Even an old clumsy white boy like me could sway to the beat.

Of course that last sentence is nothing but a now time explanation for what drove us to the music. Then we didn’t know the roots of rock, or probably care, except our parents didn’t like it, and were sometimes willing to put the stop to our listening. Praise be for transistor radios (younger readers look that up on Wikipedia) to get around their madness.

But see, Billie also, at that time, did not know what Bo looked like. Nor did I. So his idea of imitating Bo was to set himself up as a sort of Buddy Holly look alike, complete with glasses and that single curled hair strand.

Billie, naturally, like I say, was nothing but a top-dog dancer, and wired into girl-dom like crazy. And they were starting to like him too. One night he showed up at a local church catholic, chaste, virginal priest-chaperoned dance with this faux Buddy Holly look. Some older guy meaning maybe sixteen or seventeen, wise to the rock scene well beyond our experiences, asked Billy what he was trying to do. Billie said, innocently, that he was something like the seventh son of the seventh son of Bo Diddley. This older guy laughed, laughed a big laugh and drew everyone’s attention to himself and Billie. Then he yelled out, yelled out for all the girls to hear “Billie boy here wants to be Bo Diddley, he wants to be nothing but a jungle bunny music N----r boy”. All goes quiet. Billie runs out, and I run after, out the back door. I couldn’t find him that night.

See, Billie and I were clueless about Bo’s race. We just thought it was all rock (read: white music) then and didn’t know much about the black part of it, or the south part, or the segregated part either. We did know though what the n----r part meant in our all-white housing project and here was the kicker. Next day Billie strutted into school looking like the seventh son of the seventh son of Elvis. But as he got to the end of that line I could see, and can see very clearly even now, that the steam has gone out of him. So when somebody asks you who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll know that old Bo’s claim was right on track, and he had to clear some very high racial and social hurdles to make that claim. Just ask Billie.